


redshift

by fuhllmetal



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 Times, Anxiety, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, also some lowkey PTSD?, basically shiro just having a lot of problems interacting with people, but a bit of a twist on that format because i didn't stick to it as strictly as i expected, everyone gets to witness shiro denying hes Totally Not Fine, shiro-centric angst fest, the rating will probably go up later, voltron as family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuhllmetal/pseuds/fuhllmetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>alternative title: five times shiro said he was fine and one time he admitted he wasn't</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. first time: coran

**Author's Note:**

> hey! so this ALSO wasn't the voltron fic i was expecting to post but honestly it's better than what i was originally intending to. i've already written over half of this fic so i have a pretty good idea of where it's going and let me just say, it starts out like a typical 5+1 or 4+1 but then theres this one chapter where none of that stuff happens and basically it became a bit of a mess but its a calculated mess. it's My Mess
> 
> i had a hankering for some shiropain with a side of that good sheith so here it is

Shiro roamed the hallways of the Castle, still damp from the hot shower he had just emerged from. A towel hung from his neck to stop his fresh tank top from getting wet, but it wasn’t doing a very good job, as he felt now-cold droplets running down his back between the fabric and his skin. He knew he should probably go back to his quarters to get rid of the towel in increasing need of a good wringing out, but his wanderlust was getting the better of him.

The castle was like a small city in and of itself. You could get lost in it without even trying to, and honestly, Shiro wouldn’t mind that much if he did so. Training was getting duller recently, especially as Keith was stuck training solely with Lance to improve the two’s attitudes, so he did his daily and was left with the rest of the “day” to do whatever he wanted.

He usually wandered around to not only get a feel for the castle’s layout for practical reasons, but also because it was full of surprises. One day he might find himself in a library and start studying basic Altean, and another day he might find a room containing nothing but a strange machine in the middle that manufactured a very strange fabric that was softer than any material Shiro had ever felt before. On the rare occasion he would actually run into another living being, a short conversation would ensue, but he found himself becoming more and more hermit-like over the past couple of weeks.

Shiro, of course, wasn’t purposefully avoiding his team or anything. He did find himself only interacting with them during their every other day group training sessions and during meals, however. The only person he talked to regularly outside of those times was Keith who came to his quarters every night. It was coming to the point that Allura asked him privately the day before if the two of them wanted a separate suite to share instead of their current quarters, and he was supposed to ask Keith himself about that tonight at dinner.

 

Still, about the hermit thing. Shiro felt an antisocial tug at his psyche whenever he saw another person recently, desiring to end the conversation as quickly as possible. He wasn’t quite sure why that was, either, but it was starting to bother him a lot, even if he wasn’t doing a whole lot to stop it. The nagging feeling to book it when he saw, say, Hunk coming around the corner was overwhelming, and he was weak to its temptations. Fortunately it hadn’t affected their ability to form Voltron. Yet.

Was it guilt? Shiro didn’t know. The feeling curling around his guts, cold and fast, was familiar, but unfamiliar in this context. He’d spent countless ticks trying to deconstruct it in the showers, cut off almost every time by Lance shouting when he nearly slipped on the Altean tile-like flooring or Pidge yelping when the water turned cold all of a sudden.

All he knew was that it was bad, uncomfortable, and he hated it, but he kept giving in. The intensity of the feeling was directly proportional to the frequency of his terrible nightmares as of late, which were morphing into different shapes than they took in the past. Instead of being poked and prodded at on a metal table, Galran druids smiling wickedly over him, it was Keith on that table, or Lance being blown up and not making it this time, or Pidge being taken and meeting the same fate as her family, or Hunk being crushed in his lion, or the castle not being able to take a barrage of enemy fire and exploding with Allura and Coran inside.

 

Clutching his head with a quiet groan, Shiro stopped in his tracks. Just acknowledging the dreams was enough to bring on a wicked headache. He decided to take a break from his wandering and looked to the door to his left. He actually knew this part of the ship, recognizing the door as the one leading to the observatory. The doors opened for him and he stepped inside, looking around the massive star chart that engulfed the entire room.

“Oh, hello, Number One.” A voice called to him from across the room. It was Coran, seated on the floor on the ledge separating the main platform in the room and the walkway surrounding it. Shiro glanced back at the closed door behind him, did his best to swallow the rising sickness in the back of his throat, and plastered on a smile.

“Hey Coran,” he replied, ambling over to the Altean and looking at the open space next to him. Coran gestured for him to sit down, his face calmer than his usual manic (Coranic) grin. “Looking at the stars, huh?”

“Yes, well, as you do,” Coran said. “These maps are a little more political than looking out the window, but they’re more comforting than that black expanse, you know? Less empty.” He looked over to Shiro, his face expectant. Shiro nodded back, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling.

“Reminds you that there’s people on all of those planets, out there, living their lives.” He sighed. “Also reminds you that the Galra are also out there, though.” Coran chuckled darkly.

“Yes, it does do that, unfortunately. It feels as if that’s the last thing we need a reminder of, as it’s rather hard to ignore, but it’s humbling in a strange sort of way,” He said. Shiro hummed in assent. He felt like something was scratching at his chest expectantly, incentivizing a concise and speedy escape, but he did his best to resist it, reminding it that he was obliged to stick around because even though he was relatively silent now, Coran clearly had more to say according to the slight frown his mouth was twisted into.

 

“Altea was about there, right around that cluster of three suns over to your left,” Coran finally said, pointing just over Shiro’s head. Shiro looked to where his finger was pointing and couldn’t help the sad smile that found its way onto his face. He didn’t want to see Coran’s. “It was a very beautiful planet, its flora and fauna quite bountiful, and rich in eons-old cultures inhabiting its surface. Quite remarkable little place, it was.”  
Shiro was silent, and so was Coran for a tick, in reverence for a place that he had never been to out of respect for his companion. He cleared his throat, but Coran continued on.

“I know that it’s unfair to expect you to fully empathize, but I do hope you understand some of where me and Princess Allura are coming from, in regards to Voltron and pursuing the Galra.”

“Yeah, I do. I really do,” Shiro said, sentences short for fear of his voice breaking. He wasn’t sure why this was getting him so worked up, but it was the perfect storm of context, setting, and other unfortunate variables to get him more affected than he wanted. He glanced over to Coran to see his stare, unwavering, fixed on Altea’s former position, and watched it shift to him.

“You, and Pidge for that matter, have the most personal stake in this of the paladins. I can tell that sometimes training and back-to-back battles are very hard on you paladins, but I-“

“Don’t worry about it, Coran. I get it.”

 

Coran’s face fell, just as Shiro was dreading. He knew his voice cracked, but he was hoping, irrationally, that the Altean would just gloss over it and not mention it, but he knew Coran, so he knew that that wasn’t going to happen.

“ _This whole conversation was a mistake,_ ” said the sickness in his chest as it rose up out of his body and into his ear, whispering doubts into it. “ _You should have bolted when you had the chance. You’re going to show him how fucked up you are, Shiro. You can’t do that. You’re the leader. You have a responsibility-_ “

“Are you alright, Shiro?”

“Of course. I’m fine.” Shiro smiled, waved a swift goodbye, and promptly left the observatory without looking back.


	2. second time: hunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-dinner run in with hunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is soooo short (sorry btw i didn't really realize it as i was writing and it felt finished already so adding more would disrupt the flow i feel) so i figured i might as well post it now
> 
> the third chapter may go up later tonight as well or tomorrow i haven't decided yet

Dinner a few days later started uneventful. Keith and Lance were at a ceasefire, not talking to or looking at each other. Keith had instead taken to discussing something quietly with Pidge while Lance and Hunk were schooling Coran and Allura in Earth horror movie tropes. Shiro, sitting opposite Allura at the other head of the table, was simply listening in instead of contributing. His contributions to team discussion were usually minimal, barring a few Story Times as Lance had dubbed them, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be silent for whole meals.

Keith had given him a Look when he sat down without a word, but he smiled back and ruffled the younger’s hair. That was enough to placate him, so Keith turned away and left Shiro to himself.

Dinner ended just as uneventfully as it began, and dish duty was given to Shiro and Hunk that night. Ever since Hunk began the trend of using actual ingredients to cook meals, the other castle inhabitants picked up on it, which meant there were actual dishes that needed to be put into the fancy alien dishwasher. It wasn’t a big job, but it still did require two people. One person did need to hold it open, after all, as it was industrial-sized and strangely designed.

 

“I didn’t know Lance could actually cook,” Hunk commented as he stacked the plates and put all of the utensils on top of the stack. “He told me back at the Garrison that he could, but over the course of two years, he never actually proved it to me.”

“It certainly was an _interesting_ meal,” Shiro replied, holding back a chuckle. “He did do pretty well for the ingredients he had to work with, though, I’ll give him that.” Hunk shrugged.

“Fair.”

 

The two were silent for a few beats as they finished collecting the dishes and Shiro began the complicated dishwasher set-up process. What he believed to be the soap slot had a cap that was a pain to remove, and when he actually got it off, the soap itself had become a smidgen uncooperative over the course of 10,000 years and refused to leave its container.

“Need help with that?” Hunk asked, picking up a precarious tower of stacked pots across the room.

“No, I got it,” Shiro grunted. He looked up. “You seem to be the one that really needs help, anyway. Here, give me some of those before you drop one.” He sprinted across the room and took the top three receptacles off of the stack. Hunk laughed sheepishly, readjusting his grip.

“Guess we wouldn’t want to find out how breakable these things are by practically testing it out, huh?” Hunk laughed again, and Shiro sighed. The two of them brought the pots over to the counter next to the dishwasher and Hunk began loading.

 

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a bit of Earth food, am I right?” Hunk said, trying his best to be conversational. “I’d eat just about anything at this point, really. Give me some stale bread and flat soda and I’ll be set.”

Shiro smiled but didn’t reply. He understood the sentiment, but he feared that if he said something, it would take Hunk’s amicable attempt and turn it into something else less enjoyable that would leave them both feeling even more homesick than when the conversation started.

“It’s kind of funny how similar a lot of these planets have been to Earth, aesthetically anyway. Even the castle is sort of similar. I mean, dishwashers aren’t one of the things I thought would end up being universal, but here we are.” Hunk continued, monologuing nervously. Shiro could detect the slight shake of his hands as he put a dish in the washer. He remained silent.

 

“Sometimes I wonder about Earth at this very moment, though. I know they probably declared us dead by now, but I just wonder…it can’t be impossible for us to just, I dunno, go check on it real quick? Just a quick fly-by to let everyone know we’re alive? It’s probably impractical and even dangerous for like, a million reasons, but some part of me, a lot of parts, actually, wish we could.” Hunk sighed as he put the final dish in the washer. He looked up to Shiro, but his face fell.

“Shiro, buddy, you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Fine. Just a little tired is all.”

“I get that. Sure.”

 

The two parted ways and Shiro stalked off to his and Keith’s shared quarters. He didn’t say anything to Keith’s greeting when he walked through the door, immediately dove for the bed, and pretended to go to sleep until he actually did.


	3. interruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a battle distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the chapter where things start getting a little off track but its for the better of the story in the long run  
> it's also where things start going to hell in a handbasket, so that's good

The next morning, Shiro slowly awakened from a blissfully dreamless sleep, his surroundings warm and soft. He rolled over, grinning into the source of the heat next to him, and heard a soft grunt in response. His position changed from what he figured to be facing the wall into spooning the responsive mass at his side.

“You’re crushing me, Shiro, please,” Keith grumbled into the mattress, swatting at Shiro with a spare pillow. Shiro laughed, the sound bubbling up in his chest, and opened his eyes blearily. Keith was frowning at him, eyebrows set low, but his half-laying down stance was anything but aggressive and there was a happy glint in his eye. Shiro hummed, tightening his grip and entangling Keith’s legs in his own even more.

“Geez, since when have you become so affectionate? Last night you lumbered in here like a dead man and then conked out without even looking at me,” Keith said, giving in, rolling over, and taking Shiro’s face in his hands. Shiro’s heart stuttered anxiously in his chest - he prayed to whatever was responsible for their sentient lions that Keith didn’t notice - but he took the opportunity to lean in for the kiss. Keith grumbled against him at first, clearly still desiring an explanation, but caved and reciprocated.

“Sorry, Lance’s food was giving me indigestion,” Shiro said between lazy pecks, trying his best (and failing miserably) to hold back the smile on his face at his own terrible lie.

“Bullshit voice, Takashi.” Keith muffled whatever Shiro’s response was going to be with another deeper kiss, one that Shiro laughed openly into. A couple of weeks ago, Keith had gone on about Shiro’s supposed ‘bullshit voice,’ something that only he could detect, claiming that it was in a slightly higher register and made him sound more airy and less trustworthy than usual. Shiro wasn’t buying it.

 

Just as Shiro was about to separate them and come back with a smart retort, the castle alarms blared in their ears. Both paladins detangled themselves from each other and bolted to the closet to get dressed in their suits. In five minutes flat all of the paladins were arranged in the hangar, albeit a little woozy, and they climbed into their lions to prepare for battle.

The battle was a short one, as they had already taken out the majority of the Galran forces within the general area, but late reinforcements had just flooded the area they were occupying. Voltron would make quick work of this, so Shiro gave the command to form it.

His own unease was amplified by the spontaneity of the attack, especially because he thought the castle’s sensors were better at detecting Galran ships than this, but his fear and protective instincts happened to mesh well with the formation of Voltron. It meant that his teammates were as close as possible to him which was, at this point, the only way he got through battles without completely losing his cool trying to keep track of everyone.

It was his duty to keep everyone safe, after all. No one gets left behind and no one dies.

 

Shiro had a sinking feeling that the rest of Voltron could detect his anxiety through the vague psychic link they shared, but none of them acknowledged it as he doled out orders that they carried out like a well-oiled machine. In no time the main battlecruiser orchestrating the ambush was taken out with a deep key scratch courtesy of Keith’s sword. It took some time to actually locate it, as apparently the Galra had found it handy to dump some resources into outfitting their cruisers with cloaking devices now, but the device itself was huge and slowed down the ship exponentially. It seemed Pidge had a leg up on the Galra in one department, at least.

The castleship took out the rest of the smaller support ships with Voltron’s assistance and the day was saved, or so they thought. Just as Voltron separated and the lions were making their way back to the hangar, a huge explosion appeared on their sensors. It was coming from the side of the Voltron-friendly planet they were orbiting just opposite their position. Evidently they hadn’t finished wiping out the last of the reinforcements, and now they were making things personal.

Shiro’s hands seized up on the controls. The bond was still active even when they weren’t currently in Voltron, so he dimly registered through his own panic the staccato heartbeats of the rest of his team.

 

“What the hell was that?!” Lance yelled. Everyone else made terrified shouts as responses, confirming that no one knew. Shiro felt his breathing speed up and his hands begin to sweat in his suit. All of the lions had stopped flying now.

“Paladins, are you alright?” Allura’s concerned face popped up to Shiro’s left. He nodded, opening and closing his mouth and readjusting his clenched hands on the control sticks.

“We’re all fine. Allura, what just happened?” Shiro asked, regaining a grip on himself. The princess worried at her lip over the video feed.

“We’re not entirely sure, but it seems that one of the fleet, likely a very small, single pilot bomber class, was also equipped with a cloaking device, and it hurtled to the planet’s surface as a Plan B for the Galra. They’re trying to intimidate us,” she replied. Coran came into view from behind her.

“The pilot most likely jumped ship before the craft made impact and is calling for more backup, all the while wreaking havoc on the planet’s inhabitants again,” he said, nervously twirling his mustache. “We know that you’ve just been through a hell of a fight, but it’s essential that someone stakes out the crash site and gets some reconnaissance before we go in guns blazing.”

 

“I’ll go.” Keith spoke up immediately. Shiro resisted the urge to deny him immediately, literally swallowing his response in his throat. “Pidge outfitted Red with short-term cloaking a few days ago, so I should be the one to go in, since I’m fastest.”

“Who says _you’re_ fastest?” Lance retorted, and Shiro could feel him crossing his arms and pouting.

“Come on, Lance, just follow common sense for once and stop living in your weird little bubble,” Keith sighed.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to just send one person out? The princess herself said that we don’t actually know what happened over there,” Hunk put in, probably nervously wringing his hands. “Maybe we could just wait it out or send down the whole team to the surface instead?”

“And be walking like lambs to the slaughter? Hah, no _way_ ,” Pidge laughed derisively.

“Well what ideas do you have, then? I’d like to hear them!” Hunk said, his defensive side coming out.

“Everyone, calm down,” Shiro commanded, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking as he did. The comms silenced. “Thank you. Look, this is a sensitive situation we’re in, but we have to keep our wits about us instead of just bickering over everything. Let’s weigh our options before doing anything else. Allura, Coran?”

 

“Well, we could send out just one person, most likely Keith, to scout from the air, or we could all go down, or we could split up into sub-teams and do a combination.” Coran listed off the ideas on his fingers.

“Going to the surface at all would be most risky as landing too close to the crash site would alert whoever could possibly be on the surface that we’re there, but landing too far away would mean a trek to the site longer than we can afford,” Allura reasoned. “However, going to the ground has its advantages, like taking out the lone pilot before they call for backup, if they’re there in the first place, after all.”

“Would sending just a couple of people down to the surface be any less risky than sending all five of us?” Shiro asked. Allura paused for a moment.

“While the chance of getting spotted while landing isn’t much lower, and it decreases the outnumbering factor we have, it is advantageous as far as stealth goes.”

“Then why don’t we split up?” Hunk suggested. The team considered this for a moment.

Shiro knew that “splitting up” was almost certainly _never_ a good idea, and his gut was screaming at him to just high tail it out of there altogether, but the reasoning was sound. Have Keith in the air monitoring any activity and acting as worst case scenario backup, a couple people on land to neutralize the threat from the ground, and the rest in the castle to further keep tabs on the situation in regards to the nearby population and the rest of the mission. It wasn’t flawless, but it seemed to be their best shot. Right?

 

Judging by the look on Allura and Coran’s faces, they had come to the same conclusion he had. The plan was outlined like this: Keith was to remain in the air a few hundred meters above the crash site; Lance and Shiro were to fly in low and park their lions behind a mountain just south of the explosion, using the smoke cloud from the explosion for cover, and make their way to the site to deal with the pilot; Pidge and Hunk would go back to the castle to video conference with the locals and monitor Keith, Lance, and Shiro’s statuses in case emergency backup or extraction was required. The failsafes were lined up in the plan, down to Keith following Lance and Shiro’s positions from the air in case they needed immediate extraction, so all that was left was to go through with it.

Shiro clenched and unclenched his toes in his boots, trying to ignore how his head was swimming. They hadn’t attempted something like this before as a team, and while he trusted everyone, he had a terrible feeling about this.


	4. third time: lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> houston, we have a problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAND now things are heating up. i kind of wish i'd written these chapters in a different order but you know what it's too late for that now so just Take It

Lance was surprisingly quiet as he and Shiro touched down on the south side of the mountain. Shiro was glad that he was taking this seriously, but considering Lance virtually never stopped running his mouth, especially in high pressure situations, his silence was a little unnerving.

When they both had exited their lions and readied their weapons, they began their trek through the forest. They were relying on directions from Hunk up in the castleship, as the forest was too thick for Keith to guide them through properly from above. Hunk was doing his best with the directions, but he had a tendency to make unclear remarks and then nervously amend them ten seconds later all in a fluster.

“Alright, you should be coming up to this really big tree soon, so once you get to it, take a hard left. Pidge just picked up some Galran life signs from that direction,” Hunk relayed to them. Shiro could hear Allura and Coran making soft conversation with the locals in the background, trying their best to assuage their fears. Shiro could tell that it wasn’t going very well, and he couldn’t blame them for being as panicked as they were.

“We still going in the right direction?” Shiro asked in a low whisper after they made the left and continued that way for a few moments.

“Yep. At this point they’re not moving anymore, and you’re getting real hot on their trail, so Pidge says its best that we cut contact for now. Don’t want conversation giving you away, after all,” Hunk said. Shiro and Lance grunted in affirmation and put the comms in their helmets on standby.

 

As they continued in the direction that Hunk pointed them in, Shiro and Lance were still silent. It was for a practical reason, of course, but something about Lance and his whole attitude was setting Shiro completely on edge now. Whenever he’d glance over to the other paladin, he’d catch Lance turning his head away so fast he was definitely giving himself whiplash. Lance was studying him, and he wanted to know why.

Just as Shiro was about to pull Lance aside and ask him if he was okay, a stick cracked somewhere a few meters away in the dark forest. They both stopped in their tracks, made eye contact, and then let their eyes rove over the deep, burgundy colored forest for the source of the noise. An animal? Must have been a pretty big one to crack a stick that loudly, so big that they would have seen it by now. Considering how long they’d been walking in this direction, they should be practically right on top of the pilot, so it was highly likely that he was the one that made that sound. A slip in cover, Shiro surmised as he opened his stance, but he jumped when a purple flash suddenly bolted out of the depths of the forest and towards the two of them.

 

The pilot made a dive for Lance first and Shiro, in a split second, intercepted it and found himself being tackled to the ground with a ragged piece of scrap metal at his throat. Lance screamed at the top of his lungs, causing all of the nearby bird-like creatures to immediately take flight. He pulled out his bayard and started taking shots, but in his own panic, he kept missing. Walking backwards and not looking where he was going, he tripped over a log and fell onto his back.

Shiro, meanwhile, was doing his best to keep his assailant’s makeshift weapon from breaching his armor, but the pilot had his Galran arm pinned to the ground with a surprising amount of strength. Splitting up really wasn’t a good idea after all, he thought grimly as he tried bucking his legs up into where he assumed the Galran was most sensitive.

The pilot growled in pain, but in his fit, he managed to rip Shiro’s helmet off and give him quite the beating over the head with his jagged piece of metal. He raised his arm again and dragged the shank down Shiro’s torso, cutting through the armor and definitely making at least a shallow gash. Shiro screamed out in pain, convulsing underneath the pilot’s ever-tight grip.

Just when Shiro was convinced he was done for, Lance regained his composure and gave the pilot a bayard shot directly to the back of his head. He keeled over in shock, either unconscious or dead, Shiro couldn’t tell, and he finally had the awareness to realize the extent of his own injuries.

 

“Shiro, holy fuck, oh my God,” Lance was babbling, switching between English and Spanish every other word. He tried to pick Shiro up off the ground, but the older paladin hissed and convulsed in pain again, so Lance half-dropped him in shock.

“Uh, Keith, we got bad times, I’m going to need you to come pick Shiro and myself up,” Lance said into the comm, his voice breaking multiple times. Shiro couldn’t control his breathing. He’d saved Lance, which he was grateful for and by no means regretted, but things were still going south and into the worst case scenario regardless.

“ _What?_ ” Keith asked, voice deathly quiet. Shiro only heard it as a soft buzz from his own helmet just a few inches away. “What the _fuck_ did you do?!”

“It wasn’t me! Shiro, he just, he jumped in the way of the guy and got himself stabbed, I don’t know, I’m so sorry,” Lance was outright sobbing now, gripping Shiro tightly and bowing his head over his mangled chest.

“Shiro got himself stabbed? Oh no, oh no, oh no no no,” Hunk was mumbling something, most of it incoherent to Shiro, but whatever it was, it made Lance wince.

 

“Lance,” Shiro choked out. The blue paladin’s neck whipped to meet the other’s eyes, his own eyes red and blurred with tears. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

“Shiro, I’m really sorry about this, but just shut up,” Lance whined, his lip trembling. He opened his mouth to continue, but the Red Lion’s paws slammed into the ground a few meters away. Keith tumbled out, rushing to Shiro, his breath catching in his throat at the sight of him. Shiro mustered the last of his energy to smile up at Keith as Lance transferred him over.

“You fucking idiot,” was all Keith mumbled, his voice cracking on the last word, and he carted Shiro into his lion, Lance following close behind. The last thing Shiro saw before passing out was Lance wiping at his face with a bloody glove and Keith’s shoulders shaking as he placed him gently on the Red Lion’s cockpit’s floor.


	5. fourth time: allura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> backstreet's back (back again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note: i have all but the last chapter written and after i finish that one i might include an epilogue if it doesnt feel finished enough. we'll see when we get there!!

When Shiro came to, he found himself stumbling out of a cryo-pod back on the castle. He shook his head, dim awareness coming back to him as his skin heated up to room temperature. He stumbled forward again, his legs not quite ready to stand on their own yet, and he felt a pair of thin, yet sturdy, arms come up to catch his fall.

Blinking his eyes blearily, he discovered Allura to be the one who cushioned his fall. Her face was deeply concerned, but when he smiled weakly back at her, she let go a huge breath of relief and smiled back.

“Welcome back,” she whispered, helping him to stand up on his own. He already could feel his toes and move his fingers, the effects of the pod wearing off quickly.

“Good to be back. Can’t quite remember what happened to end me up in there yet, though,” Shiro admitted, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. Allura bit her lip.

“Do you want to remember yourself, or do you want me to tell you?” she asked. Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed. Was it really that bad? He supposed that it wasn’t a normal side effect of the pod for him to not be able to remember, so it really could have been that bad.

“Go ahead and tell me. I’d rather not remember out of nowhere in the shower and fall down and hit my head, just to end up in there again,” he laughed, just a tad nervously, and gestured back towards the pod he just came out of. Allura didn’t return the laugh.

 

“Well, I assume you remember the mission,” Allura began. Shiro nodded, and she continued. “That’s good, at least. On the mission, you and Lance went down to the planet, and just after you cut contact with the castle, you were ambushed by the pilot. According to Lance, you jumped in the way of the pilot going for him, and you took the blow instead. The pilot tackled you to the ground, pinned your right arm, and well…”

“Well?” Shiro shifted his stance, putting a casual hand on his hip. Allura broke eye contact and looked to the floor.

“Well, as I heard the story, the pilot first hit you over the head with a piece of scrap metal and then dragged that piece of metal through your suit and into your chest. It was a shallow cut, so it didn’t hit any organs, but that was the only fortunate part. You were losing a lot of blood very quickly, to the point where you passed out, and if Keith hadn’t gotten you back to the castle just when he did, it was unlikely you would have made it. We were worried we were going to lose you as is,” Allura said, her voice small.

She held a clenched fist over her heart, clenching it harder towards the end of her recounting.

Shiro was at a loss for words. It had all come back to him now, the unbearable pain back in his chest as if it had never left. He masked a wince.

 

“Still! There’s no point in worrying any longer, since you’re obviously here and in perfect health. It was clear after a short time in the pod that you were going to make a complete recovery, even if we had been skating on rather thin ice for a few clicks.” Allura perked up, looking back up and searching for eye contact with Shiro. He returned it, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything in response. The vision of Lance’s distraught face kept running across his mind, burned in there, and the way Keith’s breath caught in his throat was deafening even now.

“Shiro?”

“Yes, sorry, spaced out a little. Adjusting to having my body back is all,” Shiro straightened his back and grinned again, plastering it on as convincingly as he could. Allura frowned.

“Right. About that. There was something else I was meaning to ask you that relates to that.” Her stance shifted, taking on a no-nonsense stance, and Shiro felt like her height increased five whole inches with just this change in demeanor. He also had a sinking feeling that he knew what this was about.

“Before we get into that, where is everyone else?” he deflected. Allura narrowed her eyes.

“Sleeping. It’s rather early in the morning castle-time now, and no one has been sleeping well, so I took the liberty of not telling them that you were scheduled to wake up about now so they could have some peace,” she replied. “What does that have to do with anything, if I may ask?”

“Just curious,” Shiro muttered, his spine shrinking back minutely. She really could be quite the hawk when she wanted to. “Anyway, fire away.”

 

“Everyone in the castle has been worried about you recently, Shiro. And not about you recklessly getting yourself injured, either,” she cut him off before he could retort. “That’s a problem for another day. I’ve gotten reports from Coran, Hunk, and Keith that you’ve been quiet and quick to end conversations - if you even partake in them in the first place. I’m not going to pry, as it hasn’t affected your ability to form Voltron, but I want to know if this is something serious that we either need to have a one-on-one or a talk as a team about in order to solve it, or if there’s anything else that we can do to help you.”

Shiro was really at a loss for words now. Allura was treating him like he was close to running off the rails or something, like a concerned mother, like…like he was a part of the family unit he couldn’t deny they’d become over the past several months. He could feel his jaw moving up and down like a fish marooned on an unforgiving wooden pier.  
Allura dropped the stone-faced expression she’d adopted over the course of her speech and closed most of the distance between them, close enough to place a gentle hand on his right shoulder. There was a twinkle in her eye as she looked at him, still serious, but this time her expression soft. Fond.

“I understand if you’re not ready to share yet, but truly, Shiro, all we want is for you to be comfortable.” She paused. “Are you feeling better now?”

He wouldn’t use ‘better’ to describe his current state of mind, but he still couldn’t find the words, and it didn’t seem like the right time. Not yet. He nodded his head, even if a small voice inside him suggested he shake his head with a reassuring smile, or at least be non-committal. He ignored it. Best to give her piece of mind.

 

A wide grin spread across her face, edging on devilish. “Now, I’m sure Keith would love to wake up to a certain someone in his bed right about now. Go on, get him!”

Shiro’s brain could barely keep up as Allura ushered him out of the room and into the hallway, ordering him to run. As he picked up speed, still confused, he heard her whooping support in the background and cackling. He snorted, shaking his head as he slowed his sprint to a light jog after he turned the corner leading up to he and Keith’s shared room.

When he reached the door, he stopped and poised his fist to knock, but decided against it and quietly slipped in. Immediately Keith sat up in bed at the sudden sound and light difference, assuming half of a defensive position. Upon recognizing the hulking shadow in the doorway, though, he jumped out of bed and rushed to Shiro’s side, burying his face in his chest.

 

They stayed silent for a while, Keith’s breathing slow and soft against Shiro’s chest as they stood. Shiro let his arms rest at Keith’s waist and let his head rest on the shorter’s shoulder, breathing in his smell, a light vanilla and something else distinctly Keith. He thought he felt a couple of wet patches somewhere on the front of his damaged suit’s undergarment between him and Keith’s face, but he wrote it off as the cryo-pod’s atmosphere not melting off of him properly, even if that wasn’t how it worked.

“You big, stupid, fucking idiot,” Keith finally muttered into Shiro’s chest, separating them enough to look up at Shiro’s face. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I don’t think I was,” Shiro chuckled. Keith frowned, his eyebrows furrowing. He detangled his arm from Shiro and punched him in the left shoulder with it, but there wasn’t any bite behind it.

“Try it next time, then. Seriously. You scared the shit out of me, especially when you passed out with Lance all covered in your blood; I couldn’t -“

“Let’s not think about that now. I’m fine, so let’s just get in bed and be quiet for a bit instead.”

 

Keith fell silent, still glowering up at Shiro, but grumbled something under his breath that sounded like a resignation. Running a flesh thumb across Keith’s jaw, Shiro pulled him in for a quick kiss, and directed him back to the bed.

Keith got back under the covers and watched as Shiro stripped off the torn suit, throwing it in a pile with what he assumed to be the rest of his damaged outfit. The ship probably had some kind of machine on it that could fix it, somewhere. That wasn’t his first priority now, though.

Forgoing a shower, Shiro slipped under the covers next to Keith. Keith pulled him into an embrace again, kissing him once more with a little more force behind it. Shiro reciprocated, slotting their mouths together to allow for the exchange to become a little sloppier.

They made out for what Shiro knew was probably eighty ticks max, but it felt much longer, especially the way that Keith desperately clung to Shiro’s body like he would up and disappear any moment. His fingers tightened their grip on his bicep when Shiro shifted back a little, and just then Shiro’s heart broke a little in his chest.

 

He didn’t say anything, though. When they finally separated and the opportunity was perfect to bring up the jumbled mess whose true nature was still unclear to even Shiro yet, he let it remain unsaid for now. It just wasn’t the right time.

“I love you, Takashi,” Keith murmured into Shiro’s neck. He shivered at the contact, pressed their lips together one more time, and promptly slipped into sleep.


	6. fifth time: pidge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a group hug gets shiro on the road to realizing he's being a little silly

_A hand drifted over Shiro’s chest, painfully slow, and ran its fingers down his stomach. In its wake it left a faint itching sensation, but his arms were strapped down by an invisible force, rendering them useless to stop it. The itch intensified, consuming his thoughts, until it became an ache._

_The ache burned, burned through his skin, and Shiro forced his neck forward for a look. His eyes were met with five trails of disintegrating skin, the flesh dissolving away like seafoam. He groaned and struggled against the restraints to no avail, shouting out for help. The restraints snapped over his mouth, silencing his words, but he still groaned as loudly as he could around it. Another restraint gripped his throat this time, choking him. It was tight enough that he couldn’t speak and it was difficult to breathe, but it wasn’t tight enough to asphyxiate him completely._

_His eyes snapped back and forth around the dark abyss surrounding him, and he realized that he was alone, the spotlight shining directly into his eyes above him his only company. All he could do was watch the skin slowly dissolve away, the trails spreading until they engulfed his whole chest and seeped into his organs and muscles and bones, taking them too, the process painfully slow. He had no idea how much time had passed before the devastation reached his heart, where he felt the corrosion in his soul this time. The restraints lifted._

_He stood up, his mind fuzzy, and six more spotlights shone into existence. Beneath them were six more surgical tables like the one he had been resting on. His body, the flesh one dissolved completely now, was replaced completely with the material that made up his right arm. Both of Shiro's arms lit up and he approached the closest table to his right and stuck his hand into the chest that was lying upon it, ignoring the cries for mercy in a strangely familiar voice -_

 

Shiro awoke with a start to a half empty bed. The spot Keith occupied previously had gone cold, and a glance at the clock on the bedside table told him it was ten in the morning.

_Wait. Ten in the morning?!_

Shiro shot up out of bed, his heart pounding away in his chest as he searched the room frantically for an answer, as if the empty, sterile suite would know why he slept in so horrifically late. No wonder Keith was gone. But why had he let Shiro sleep in so long?

He picked up the clock, checking it to see why the alarm hadn’t woken him up. The alarm was off, clearly put that way deliberately. So that’s how it is.

 

Rolling his eyes, Shiro lifted himself out of bed and put the clock back on the bedside table with a sigh. If this was Keith’s idea of treating him, he was lucky nothing disastrous happened while Shiro was dozing off. Considering the nightmare he just had, he sort of wished Keith hadn’t done that, too, even if he was as used to them as he could be by now.

The tank top he’d worn to sleep was completely soaked with sweat on the back and front, and when Shiro stripped it off, he threw it in the hamper with a crinkled nose and furrowed brow. His boxers were pretty bad off, too, so he replaced them with fresh ones. He hoped the sheets were better, but that could be dealt with later.

Testing his hair for grease and deciding it could be worse, he put off a shower again and went ahead with getting dressed in his usual outfit. He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment to make sure his face was presentable as well. The bags under his eyes were pretty wicked, but he assumed no one else looked much better, and the five o’clock shadow he was accumulating could use attending to, but again, that didn’t matter. He’d take care of the hygiene after he talked to his team, the team he owed an explanation.

 

An explanation. Right. Sleeping on ‘it’ hadn’t provided many answers, unfortunately, so that might have to wait, too. Shiro groaned and ran a hand down his face. He doubted he’d have much time to himself today, considering the whole ‘ _oh yeah, I had a brush with death_ ’ thing and how it was unlikely that anyone would let him out of their sight for the next 24 hours.

He felt a twinge in his chest at the thought of everyone being so worried about him, a bittersweet feeling he couldn’t give a name to. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. They were expending so much energy on him of all people; wasn’t he supposed to be the pillar supporting them all? It wasn’t like he was about to fall apart at any given second, but even still, it was getting hard to deny that he had a problem - especially when Allura herself had staged a mini-intervention, not even waiting for him to process the events leading up to it.

_Now wasn’t the time to be sorry for yourself, Shiro, cut it out._

Slapping himself in the face a few times to wake himself up and splashing a little cold water on it for good measure, Shiro braced himself. He left the room and walked down the hall towards the common room, a displeased army of bees that took up residence in his chest getting angrier and more frantic, rising from the pit of his stomach to his throat as he got closer and closer.

Swallowing the stings once and for all, he signaled the door to open and was met with the rest of Team Voltron, clearly waiting for his arrival.

 

“He’s up, everyone!” Hunk shouted, and everyone whipped around from where they were sitting to look at Shiro. He chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Good morning,” he said. Lance vaulted the couch and bolted up to Shiro, engulfing the taller man in a hug with his long, thin arms.

“ _Jesucristo_ , man, I thought you were gonna fucking die,” Lance shouted directly into Shiro’s chest. Shiro couldn’t help but laugh, returning the hug and patting Lance on the head. When Lance looked up at him, his eyes were watery and his lips in a pout. “I’m serious! You scared me so bad! Don’t do that again, for the sake of me and everyone else’s sanity!”

“Your sanity?” Shiro echoed, a wry smile on his face. Pidge appeared next to Lance, out of Shiro’s view until now due to her lacking height.

 

“He’s actually not exaggerating that much for once. You were pretty roughed up when Keith and Lance carted you out of Red, and even though you’re literally made of metal,” she gestured to Shiro’s right arm, “it became pretty clear that you’re not invincible.” Shiro’s expression sobered.

“I heard. Allura told me the details last night when I came out of the pod,” he replied. Pidge’s mouth was set in a thin line, but looking up at Shiro again, the line softened and her eyebrows relaxed.

“I’m really glad you’re okay.” Pidge fidgeted, not meeting his eyes and looking at the ground. Shiro couldn’t help the melancholic smile that spread on his face, and he placed his flesh arm on Pidge’s shoulder for a moment before removing it just as fast. He turned to Lance, who was still grappling him more like a professional wrestler than a relieved team member.

 

“Uh, Lance, you think you might want to let me go any time soon?” Shiro said, moving his arms up and out of the hug. Lance shook his head violently like a petulant child.

“Are you kidding me?! You’re not going anywhere, amigo - ay!” Lance’s sentence was cut off by Hunk coming in and forcibly removing Lance’s arms from Shiro’s body. Lance, now fully separated, went back to the couch to sulk.

Hunk approached Shiro now, a bashful look on his face. Shiro lifted an eyebrow, changing his stance so one hand rested on his hip, regarding Hunk with amusement. Lance’s show had put him on the road to a good mood, even if it may have crushed his lungs slightly.

“I know you’re probably not in the mood for hugs after that,” Hunk pointed back at Lance, who had made a full recovery and was now busying himself with trying to get under Keith’s skin, “But would it be too much to ask for a little sugar for Ol’ Yellow over here?”

“Anything for you, big guy, come on,” Shiro said, advancing and meeting Hunk halfway. Shiro had to admit, Hunk gave really good hugs. Pidge decided she wanted in on this too, so she grabbed on to both Shiro and Hunk’s sides, cackling when they both jumped.

 

“Oh look, Keith, the rest of the team is stealing your boyfriend before he’s even taken a step in the door!” Lance taunted in the background.

“Come on, Lance, don’t talk like you didn’t get kicked off of him not five minutes ago.”

“I was not kicked off! I was pried off.”

“‘Cause there’s a big difference there, sure.”

“Are you guys going to spend the rest of the day having a pissing contest or are you going to get over here and partake in the group hug for our dear, dear leader?” Pidge shouted over her shoulder. Keith and Lance glanced at each other one more time, scowling, before making their way over to the door to join the group hug. 

Allura and Coran decided they should join after that, and it soon became a bit too large to be considered a hug anymore and more like a friendship flesh mass with Shiro in the center.

 

The hug broke off, its participants beaming and laughing, and Shiro remained silent as they all meandered back to the center of the lounge, the atmosphere losing its previously mournful air. The only one that hung back was Pidge, who still stood next to Shiro, facing forward to the rest of the room like he was.

The two were quiet for a few ticks, watching the rest of their team in companionable silence. The longer the silence went on, however, Shiro sensed that Pidge had something to say and was deciding the best way to break it to him. That seemed to be a reoccurring theme as of late.

He looked down only to meet her eyes, studying him with a furrowed brow. She didn’t break eye contact, only softened her expression, and then looked back to the rest of the team without a word. Shiro sighed; this was starting to get tedious.

 

“You know how I’m still invested in finding my dad and brother, right?” Pidge asked. Shiro nodded; of course he did. He couldn’t forget it he tried, considering he, too, was also pretty invested in that. “It sounds immensely cheesy when I say it, but I think I found another family on the way, too. That’s not to say that they’re replacing the original one, because they certainly are not. They’re just different. Separate. I actually really like it, what we have here.”

“Yeah. I do too.” Shiro kept his sentences carefully short. Pidge continued.

“I can tell you do, a lot more than you let on, actually.” She looked up at him. “And no, that doesn’t mean you seem like you don’t like us, if that’s what you’re worried about. You seriously worry too much, man - it’s going to give you a heart attack in a few years.”

“Hey, I’m not that old!” Shiro retorted, clinging to the one not-serious part of what Pidge just said. She stuck her tongue out, but sobered up after her raspberry was done.

 

“I know you still blame yourself for what happened to Dad and Matt, and I’m pretty confident in my guess that it’s what’s been making you act weird around us recently,” Pidge began, ignoring Shiro’s sharp intake of breath. “But I know for a fact that I’m going sound ridiculous when I say what I’m about to say. You’re just going to have to take my word for it, though, when I say that you have to let them go a bit. We’re your crew, too. We’re here right now, and we’re worried about you closing in on yourself because of something that your brain is conjuring up to distract you.”

Pidge got a little choked up about halfway through her speech, not looking at Shiro the whole time she said it, but she looked up to him after she finished. Her eyes were shining faintly. Shiro didn’t mention it because he was pretty sure he looked the same. He considered his response, filled up with so many questions, but he settled for a simple:

“I…Thanks, Pidge.”

She nodded, a watery smile on her face, and gave him a quick hug.

“You alright now?”

“Yeah.”

When she detached herself, she took off her glasses to wipe her eyes on her sleeve, and rejoined the others.

 

Shiro stood at the door for another moment. This time, he was still dismissing the issue, but it wasn’t as much of a lie as last time. He felt an inner peace, Pidge’s blessing, sitting in his chest like a reassuring beacon that drew light on what he’d been mulling over for a long, long time. He’d worry about coming to terms with it later, though. Team Voltron, his team, was waiting for him now.

Drawing his thoughts back into the present, Shiro slapped on the most genuine grin he could muster and walked over to the circular couch and sat next to Keith, nudging the other with his shoulder. Keith looked at him for a moment, searching his face for something, but looked away when Lance hollered something inflammatory again that he just couldn’t let slide.

Shiro looked at Allura across the couch and she shot him a knowing look, but she said nothing. He didn’t either.


	7. admission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shiro gets some things off his chest.

The day came and went, at least two people hanging off of Shiro’s arms at all times. He found himself not minding it as much as a previous version of him would have. Even though this kind of contact was exactly the thing he needed to have alone time to mull over his feelings towards, Lance’s terrible jokes, Hunk’s equally as terrible additions to said jokes, and Pidge’s snarky commentary under her breath was a very successful distraction.

Shiro almost felt like he was babysitting. Somehow that made it easier to handle. Still, by the time dinner and the post-dinner card game were over, Shiro was glad to have finally found himself alone to his own thoughts. Even Keith wasn’t around; he had fled the room to train as soon as he was eliminated from their poker round.

Allura had sensed his mood when it was just the two of them left in the lounge. She sent him a significant look, daring him to go do something self-endangering, and then glided out of the room without a word. Now it was just him, a messy table covered in haphazardly thrown down poker hands, and the chips strewn all over the floor from when Lance got a little too heated.

 

Shiro glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was half past midnight castle time. Even though Keith was, well, _Keith_ , he probably finished up his session about twenty minutes ago. Considering Shiro thought clearer when his whole body was moving, he left the lounge for the training deck.

After getting changed in the locker room, Shiro stepped into the empty deck, just like he predicted. Warming up his hand, he called out to the computer to start up his usual beginning sequence. The practice droid rose up from the floor about ten feet away from him. Thirty seconds later, it advanced, and Shiro charged.

His arm flew back and forth, jab, parry, dodge, strike, using his hand as a blade. After five minutes, the droid sped up, and the real training sequence began.

 

Circling the droid, Shiro let the usual dance go on the back burner, left to instinct. The previous week’s events were brought to the forefront of his mind, ready to be examined, starting with his conversation with Coran.

Shiro knew that the conversation bothered him. He did his best empathizing with people, but he didn’t have to look far within himself to know that comforting someone over the loss of their entire planet was out of his area of specialization. On the surface, he could just write it off as him taking on Coran’s own feelings too much and letting them get to him.

He knew there was something else lurking under there, though. The way Coran could immediately identify Altea’s former position, a reflex, and the longing for something he would never see again in his voice - Shiro knew those feelings personally. He felt them when he was in Galran captivity, dreaming of Earth and all of its comforts, its landscapes, and its people. The Garrison, his family, Keith.

He was avoiding how much he missed Earth, and talking to Coran only reminded him of that fact. That’s one problem down. He blocked the thrust of the droid’s spear and dropped into a roll, coming out of it just by the droid’s feet. He slashed at its ankles with his hand, cutting them clean off, and the floor sucked up the damaged droid to replace it with a new one.

 

Now to his conversation with Hunk. Yet another situation where the solution seems to be obvious - Hunk was being awkward, reminiscing over Earth, and Shiro was already on edge to begin with. But why was he on edge? That was the million dollar question. It was certainly more than just Earth in this instance.

Shiro had felt a distinct tug that begged him to bolt for the door the entire time. He was in an enclosed space with another person with an obligation to stay. Was that the problem? He could sleep with Keith just fine, and while Keith was certainly a very different person than Hunk, Hunk wasn’t abrasive and didn’t particularly remind Shiro of anyone else he had bad associations with, so it didn’t seem that was the problem.

One key difference between Keith and Hunk, though, was that Keith had already seen Shiro at what he considered to be some of his best and worst moments (barring the Galran capture, anyway). Hunk was an incredible guy, but Shiro just didn’t know him like that.

Hunk had been half-prompting Shiro on questions that he might not have considered probing or personal, but to Shiro, Earth had become something he avoided talking about if at all possible. There was a reason he didn’t provide details about Earth when Coran was sharing about Altea.

So, it boiled down to an underlying discomfort on Shiro’s part when it came to interacting with other members of his crew. Now that he could see it lain plainly out for him, it was a little embarrassing that he had been so staunchly denying himself that explanation up until now. The droid made a charge for him and he feinted, pivoted, and drove his hand through its shoulder. The droid was sucked up into the floor before its arms even made impact, and it was replaced.

 

Then the fiasco at their most recent mission. Shiro grimaced, his stance faltering for a moment as the image of Lance shouting over him, eyes puffy and mouth twisted, flashed before his eyes. He wouldn’t be forgetting that one any time soon.

Clearly the issue here wasn’t just his willingness to jump in front of a teammate to save their life. Shiro knew himself well enough to already know where that came from, and that instinct wouldn’t be changing, either. Therefore, death wish ruled out.

The problem, made clear to him by Lance’s other behavior, was something else he said. Now that he had time to think about it, Lance’s weird glances in his direction likely had everything to do with his conversation with Hunk the night before the mission. Allura had even admitted to him that Hunk had come to her personally about it, and if he was willing to go to Allura about it, Shiro would bet anything he told Lance first.

This meant the problem was his team getting wise to his discomfort in interacting with them. No amount of self-reflection could solve a problem like this one, at least not in any way comparative to actually confronting them about it, so he decided to put that one off. Since Allura’s conversation boiled down to the same thing, it was also pushed to the side.

Shiro ducked, dodging a sword swipe aimed directly at his neck, and kicked the droid where its shins would be. It stumbled slightly, just enough for Shiro to push it down, pin it, and decapitate it. The floor waited until he moved off of the droid’s remains to suck up and replace them.

 

That brought him to the most recent development: his conversation earlier with Pidge. This one was different from the others. Pidge had unashamedly psychoanalyzed him directly to his face when even Allura, who previously held the title for most direct, restrained herself from being presumptive. Not only that, but Pidge didn’t hold back from bringing up topics she knew for a fact would get under Shiro’s skin. That was exactly her intention.

The method was effective, to say the least, because she was most responsible for getting him where he was right now, brooding while chopping droids to pieces. Yet even though she wasn’t sparing his feelings, what she said was the most hopeful version of the truth she could sell him, and he owed it to her to work his hardest to save her family.

Shiro stopped for a moment, only dodging a blow to the head as an afterthought. He was getting caught up in the exact line of thinking she’d accused him of. Well.

It burned to even consider her proposition that he forget about the Holts. Even though she never said ‘forget,’ it sure felt like it, and it was baffling coming from her. She explained her position, but he still felt lost. Team Voltron? His new crew, yes, but not the Holts. They weren’t in the immediate danger that the Holts were in right now, except…

Except he didn’t know anything about the Holts’ current status. He had no way of knowing, and no matter how much it hurt to admit that, he had to face it. That wasn’t giving up on them; it was just facing the truth of the matter.

But Voltron was with him right now, and he knew he had a duty to protect them, but it hadn’t hit him until until now that protection didn’t just mean jumping in front of a piece of scrap metal to save someone else.

 

The droid slapped the pole of the spear across his exposed stomach, forcing the air out of Shiro’s lungs and knocking him off balance. He tried to recover and find his stance again, but the droid was too fast and dove to the ground, pinning him. He struggled against its plastic hand trapping his metal arm, but its grip was fierce, and the face of the Galran superimposed itself over the droid’s blank white head for the briefest of moments.

Shiro flinched, preparing for the pain again, when a voice called out to him, echoing off his eardrums like sound in a fishbowl.

“End training sequence!”

 

Someone rushed to his side, hovering over him and helping him to sit up and catch his breath. Shiro was still hyperventilating, his vision still imploding, but a steady hand drew circles on his back and provided a shoulder for his head to loll onto. Slowly his breathing calmed down and his brain came down from the panicked high it was caught in.

Looking to his left to see who it was, Shiro was surprised to find Keith there, a searching, concerned look scanning his features. He didn’t know why he was surprised, really.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Shiro huffed, straining his mouth into a shaky smile, still panting. Keith scowled.

“What the hell were you doing, Takashi?” He asked, the shaking in his tone betraying how decidedly not-angry he was, no matter how much he tried to seem like he was mad.

Shiro didn’t answer the question. Keith sighed.

 

“You don’t have to answer this either, but,” Keith adjusted his position, forcing Shiro to look him in the eye. “Are you really okay?”

Shiro paused. Keith’s eye contact was unwavering, his indigo eyes clearly resisting the temptation to dart all over Shiro’s face and body in search of some kind of injury. Shiro took a deep breath, let it out, and finally spoke.

“No. I don’t think I am.”

 

Keith’s expression for the next ten seconds was truly a sight to behold, Shiro thought, because it cycled through more emotions than Keith usually expressed publicly in an average day. What was important to Shiro was the relieved smile that flickered back into concern when the show ended. He figured he must have done something right to see that.

“Want to talk about it?” Keith asked, voice soft and passive, trying hard to not display his ‘ _I’m talking to the Skittish Shiro that could completely shut down at any second_ ’ face. Shiro could read him too well for him to be successful at that.

“Maybe not in here.” Shiro said, gesturing to their surroundings. Keith cracked a smile at that and stood up, offering a hand to Shiro. He took it and they left through the locker rooms, Shiro picking up his casual clothes on the way.

 

It took a few minutes to get to their suite, but they were lucky that it was close enough that the silence between them in the hallway didn’t grow awkward. Shiro almost had second thoughts, but then they were in their room and moving to the bed and he didn’t have a justifiable escape route anymore.

Keith was quiet when they were seated, purposefully not prompting Shiro so he would start his explanation on his own time. Shiro honestly felt like he didn’t deserve this kid sometimes. (He wasn’t much of a kid anymore, Shiro reminded himself.)

 

“Have you ever thought of Voltron as a family?” Shiro began. He honestly didn’t know where he was going with this, but starting from his first thought and letting the rest dribble out on his own time sounded like the best course of action. He wasn’t very good or practiced at this ‘sharing your feelings’ thing.

Keith regarded him with an unreadable look, and he prompted Shiro to continue.

“I know that all of you have been worrying about me lately because I’ve been acting off, and I’ve been wondering about it myself. I was up on the training deck to work that out, but clearly I got a little carried away.” Shiro laughed nervously. Keith snorted.

“I’ll say,” he replied. Shiro felt a reassuring hand creep its way onto his back again. He turned into the touch to he was fully facing Keith now, a difficult feat, but something about Keith’s expression kept him more grounded than the dark, blank wall previously opposite him.

“In all seriousness, though, I know I’ve been acting a little weird. I’ve just been sort of - how do I put this so it doesn’t sound terrible - uncomfortable around other people recently? Not you,” Shiro backpedaled, his eyes growing wide at the implication, “Never you, of course. But everyone else, especially in regards to our team dynamics and conversations and…”

“I’m assuming the conversation Hunk told us about has something to do with this.” Keith provided, his expression unreadable again.

“Yeah, you could say that. It’s not him as a guy, either, because it’s impossible to hate Hunk. It’s definitely a…me problem.”

 

“You problem?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“I guess; I’m not very good at this whole ‘expressing my deepest emotions’ thing, Keith.” Shiro crossed his arms, his eyebrows furrowing.

“It’s okay. I’m not either. Just…just say what’s natural and we’ll make sense of it.” Shiro was surprised at how plain and earnest Keith’s response was, as he was expecting some sort of quip, and he let his shoulders settle a little. Keith’s hand resumed drawing little circles on his back.

 

“Do you think you’re intimidated by the responsibility of leading Voltron?” Keith asked. Shiro willed himself not to get defensive, reminding himself that Keith was only probing him, but it was difficult. Keith stopped drawing circles and retracted his hand. Shiro deflated at the loss of contact, but he nearly jumped out of his own skin when Keith took both of his hands in his own. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Shiro was still silent. He bit his lip. His mind rejected the thought immediately - he was perfectly capable and he knew that - but a small voice in him whispered,

_“Might have been too quick.”_

“It’s okay to be intimidated, Shiro. Seriously. No one’s going to shoot you for that; even Lance wouldn’t blame you.” Keith started on a spiel, but Shiro looked him in the eye - a silent warning to stop. Keith shut up immediately, cheeks coloring.

They were silent for a while. Shiro lost track of how long, his mind fuzzing and blurring thoughts, time, and space together into one big, confusing soup. A rising feeling he recognized as anxiety rose in his throat, but Keith, likely detecting his too-quick pulse, started rubbing circles with his thumbs into the side of both of his hands - metal and flesh.

“I can’t bear the thought of losing you. All of you.” Shiro finally whispered, staring at where his and Keith’s hands met. “Not like how I lost the Holts.”

The silence of the room allowed Shiro to hear the way Keith’s breath caught and the little gasp that escaped when Shiro mentioned the Holts, just like how he reacted when Pidge mentioned his former crew earlier.

When did he start thinking of them as his former crew?

 

“I’m sorry,” was all Keith said. Shiro didn’t want him to say anything more than that. It was just enough for the dam to break, the anxiety finally hitting terminal mass and dissolving into tears. They first pricked at the backs of his eyes, but then they rose up and out past his eyelids, rolling down his face silently.

Keith took Shiro up in a hug, one that Shiro reciprocated quickly, sinking into Keith’s touch. His muscles turned to jelly as he finally released his frustrations and worries into Keith’s shoulder - not as words, but as salty wet spots on Keith’s shirt. Nothing needed to be said now, anyway, because the way Keith ran his hands up and back the expanse of Shiro’s back told Shiro that he already heard all he needed to hear to get it.

 

They stayed like that for an even longer unidentifiable span of time. Shiro eventually ran out of tears, never getting any louder than a quiet sob thankfully, and he and Keith slowly parted from their embrace. Shiro didn’t look up until Keith hooked a finger underneath of his chin and lifted his head so they could make eye contact.

“I’m so scared that-“ Shiro was cut off by a hiccup. Keith’s face, twisted in concern, inched closer.

“Scared that what?” he probed.

“That I’ll get too close to all of you and it’ll be dragged away from me again.” Shiro spit out the damning sentence in one fast jumble, his voice breaking into a dry sob at the end.

“Shiro, you’re not the only one who feels that way.” Keith said. Hot shame rolled over Shiro in one wave, smacking him in the face. His physical body probably flinched as much as his mind did, because Keith immediately took him up into his arms again.

 

“We all feel that way. Ironically, about you especially. So please, please, please, don’t shoulder the whole burden yourself.” Keith murmured into his neck. Shiro felt something hot and wet roll down under his shirt, leaving a cool track behind it. “You can’t leave us, Shiro.”

 

Shiro sniffed and pulled Keith’s head up so they made eye contact again. Keith’s eyes were glistening with tears in the low light. Shiro leaned in and kissed him.

Both their lips tasted like salt, but Shiro didn’t care, because he actually had Keith physically there to hold and touch and kiss and nothing else mattered at that moment because there was someone there with him.

He would find the Holts, as was his duty, but it was a responsibility he would share with the rest of his crew. That was what families did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking around for this fic that i wrote incredibly quickly (for me, anyway)! i sort of wish i had written the whole thing ahead of time and posted it as a single chapter but oh well. even though ive been writing fic for about 5 years now, this is the first multichapter/work over 2k that i've EVER finished. think about that. five years and i havent finished anything besides really short oneshots. its a little incredible how good i am at dropping projects
> 
> anyway, thank you all for the kudos, bookmarks, and nice comments!! voltron still has me hostage so ill definitely be writing more soon!! if u want u can follow me on twitter for me screaming about voltron (@fuhllmetal)


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